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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Where was my invitation to the Vienna Ball?

So apparently there is this big event every year in Vienna - the Vienna Opera Ball. Society people allow some famous people to attend and it's a huge social event at the Vienna State Opera. The opera house looks like what you would expect it to look like:

Being a student of European history, I'm fascinated that "royals" still exist so I like to check out the UK equivalents of gossip rags online so I can gaze at them in their natural habitat.

Today I stumbled across an article about this Vienna ball on one of the sites and I'm looking at the pictures of the ball getting all irritated that debutantes still exist in the European sense (Sorry Southern US gals, this is a whole different level of debutante here). Why irritated? Because I'm not a debutante. But anyway, while I was irritating myself with the pictures of those annoying girls, I stumbled across two absolutely fantastic men who attended the ball:

But what is really happening in the picture is the guy to her left is completely stealing her thunder! His confidence, his poise, his panache, his glorious moustache - I can barely see Helena in the photo:

That man is cooler than me. He's cooler than you. He's cooler than all of us put together. Oh how I wish I knew him!

Second Fantastic Man Who Attended the Vienna Ball:

So then I get to the last picture at the bottom and it's the UN Secretary and the President of Austria with their wives. At least, that's what we're supposed to think.

But in reality, I'm pretty sure that the President of Austria is a relative of Thufir Hawat, the Mentat from Dune!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the President is a very nice man and runs Austria very capably, but I really think that this is the first indication that everything Frank Herbert wrote is true. I'm just saying, maybe we ought to keep a closer eye on Sting, that's all.

Then again, I could have it totally backwards and it's just that Thufir was from Austria...

Hi Greta! No, I'm not, but I just looked it up and it looks very interesting!!!! On that same note, I recommend The Baroque Cycle, a series of books by Neal Stephenson - fascinating combination of history and science in fiction.